


Euphoria

by cristianoronaldo



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 13:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3651483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cristianoronaldo/pseuds/cristianoronaldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College AU. Workaholic, introverted Iker. Exciting! Loud! Sergio!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Euphoria

**Author's Note:**

> i'm a sucker for fucked up Sernando and wounded Seriker 
> 
> * I really like to hear favorite lines/favorite parts/ reactions and feelings, so when some of you say "i'm sorry this comment is just me rambling" -- DO THAT iT"S mY FAVORITE

****

"People do not exist to put you back together again. If you're like a puzzle, it's your own goddamn responsibility to paint a pretty picture. Don't ask me to fuss around with the pieces."

Sergio was ranting again. He was always ranting. He had a terribly exhausting personality with a faint charming aftertaste. And he did have those lips. Iker often thought about Sergio's lips while he talked, rarely paying attention to what actually came out of them.

"You know? Like, honestly. I am so happy I broke up with him."

Iker sipped his coffee. Coffee was his happy place. If he sipped his coffee, it almost looked like he was listening. And listening meant caring. He was very good at pretending to care, or very bad depending on who you asked.

"Did you ever like him?"

"Did you?"

When Sergio asked him questions, Iker liked to turn it back around to the man himself. That way, when Sergio and Fernando inevitably got back together, Iker could remain happily uninvolved.

"No," Sergio spat. "Of course not. How could you ever even ask me that?"

He sipped his coffee again. "You did date for seven months. I thought it was a reasonable question."

"Well it wasn't."

"Don't be a child about this."

"Don't scold me. You know how I get when I'm scolded."

Belligerent and ten years more childish. Yeah. He knew. "Sergio," he sighed, shaking his head.

"Why do all of our conversations end with you making a point I don't understand and you shaking your head and muttering ‘Sergio’ like you're plotting to kill me and I just don't know it yet. Are you plotting to kill me and I just don't know it yet?"

Iker raised an eyebrow. "If I were plotting to kill you, do you really think that I would tell you?"

"Well I would hope not. Just get it over with real fast. I don't have the patience to sit around fearing my death."

"You're a psychology major and you say this? Isn't the entire human experience sitting around fearing death?"

Sergio narrowed his eyes. "Is that Buddha? I feel like that's Buddha."

"Aristotle," Iker replied dryly.

"Oh." Sergio shrugged, unbothered. "I'll have to write that one down for the final."

"Be sure that you do."

Sergio returned to his reading and his ranting. Iker had a theory that he couldn't accomplish one task without simultaneously partaking in another. Multitasking was in that boy's DNA.

"Anyway, like I said, I can't believe I ever fell for his shit." He highlighted an entire paragraph in neon pink.

"Hmm.”

I hate when you make that sound. I can't ever tell what you're thinking."

"That's kind of the point."

+

Iker didn’t know what it was to love someone, and perhaps that was why, despite his best efforts, he always found his thoughts straying back to Sergio’s relationships, his passion, that look he got in his eyes when he said certain names with reverence.

For him, sex was just sex. It was messy and dirty, and not all that satisfying in the end unless they parted ways without looking back. He didn’t want to lay between sheets and hear whispers. All he was asking for was a little relief and a little silence.

Dates held no meaning for him whatsoever. Meaningless conversation, expensive food, time he could have been spending studying, thinking.

Despite finding Sergio as annoying as he did, the other man was his source of entertainment.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened,” he said, stealing the seat across from Iker and dumping his bag unceremoniously beside him on the floor. It was nearly midnight, and they were in one of the school’s coffee shop/lounges. He had far too much energy.

Iker ignored him. He could hear Sergio quite well, but it did wonders for his already swollen ego to sit there and pretend his music was too loud.

Sergio leaned over and snapped the earbuds out. “Iker,” he said, “can you hear me?”

“No,” he said, setting his pen down and taking a sip of his coffee. He pushed his dish forward, seeing Sergio eye the remnants of what had once been an immaculate pumpkin coffee cake with french vanilla icing.

“Right,” Sergio said, diving in, “Well, you should have been in my class today because Fernando kept turning around and staring, and, I don’t know, just giving me all these rude looks, so after class--”

“Oh, wonderful.”

“--I stopped him, and I said, ‘Excuse me, Fernando, but I do not appreciate the looks you’ve been giving me during class, and you need to quit being such a dick about everything.’ And he was like, ‘Sergio, I wasn’t looking at you during class. You just have a huge head, and this is one of the reasons we broke up.’--”

“Please tell me this story ends there.”

“No, actually, we argued for like ten more minutes, and then we went back to his room and--”

“Do not tell me.”

“--fucked for a good two and a half hours,” Sergio finished triumphantly. He continued to pick at the coffee cake while Iker stared him down emotionlessly. “Come on, Iker, lighten up. Do you like Fernando?”

“Do you like Fernando?” He returned to his notes. They were terribly boring, but they did always manage to remove him from reality, so he was grateful, in a sense, for the way they dulled him to the point of nonexistence.

“I think so.” He scratched his chin. “And, like, the sex is great and everything--”

Iker cleared his throat loudly, looking around as if someone might overhear.

Sergio snorted. “Can you relax? We’re at a university, not a preschool. These people know what coitus is. Anyway, as I was saying, the sex is good, but we fight so often. It’s exhausting. Do you ever wonder if it’s worth it?”

“Do you ever wonder if it’s worth it?”

Sergio blinked. “That’s a good question. And I do. I really do wonder, but we always come back to each other. If we always come back, we must always be returning for a reason, right? Or is it more important that this thing always ends?” He shook his head. “Iker, I need your wisdom.”

“My wisdom,” Iker repeated, underlining a word three times. Distracted, he added a fourth and had to scramble for his eraser to make it straight like the others. “And what wisdom would that be?”

“I don’t know. Tell me about your love life. Maybe I’ll learn something and apply it to my own. My philosophy teacher says we take what we see in life and apply it to ourselves. Isn’t that genius?”

“Sure,” Iker said colorlessly. “But I’m not really into talking about my own love life.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“But why?”

“Because.”

“But, Iker,” Sergio whined. “I tell you everything, and you never tell me anything. I only ever occasionally get nuggets of information from your brother when he comes to visit. Do you know how hard it is to wait until Unai comes to visit? Iker, please. Iker, my life depends on knowing this information. I will die without it. Iker, I will die.”

“Fine,” Iker snapped. “But only because you possess the rare ability to annoy me to the point where I would actually prefer death.”

Sergio returned to the coffee cake. Nearly all the frosting was gone. He liked to devour the sweetest bits first. “Good. So are you seeing anyone?”

“Currently, I’m seeing you. I see Juan in the corner reading. I see Sara wiping down the counter. I see Lara taking notes. I see Cristiano doing--”

“Iker,” Sergio said, giving him a look. “Are you currently dating anyone?”

He added a fifth line beneath the word. “No.” Moved on to the next paragraph. Suddenly, none of it made sense. Sergio’s words were ringing in his ears. Are you seeing anyone? Are you dating anyone? Are you? Are you? Are you anyone?

“Are you fucking anyone?”

“Currently?”

“Recently.”

“What do you mean by recently? What counts as recent?”

Sergio rolled his eyes. “Dude, I will answer that, but before we get to that, I just want to let you know that you are impossible to learn anything about, and this is probably why you’re not currently dating anyone.”

“You’re easy to get to know, and neither are you,” Iker returned pointedly.

Sergio shrugged. He rarely took things personally and just seemed to accept that unpleasantness was part of Iker’s personality. “So when did you last sleep with someone?”

“Probably three months ago.”

“Three months,” Sergio repeated. “Three months. Are you… I mean. Are you...doing alright?”

“Somehow,” Iker said dramatically, “Somehow I am surviving.”

“No wonder you’re so grumpy all the time.”

“Do you think I would be less grumpy if I had sex?”

“No, probably not. Being grumpy is a fundamental aspect of your personality, but I mean. I would feel better about it.”

“Naturally my moods are about you somehow.”

“Isn’t everything,” Sergio returned, mouth half full. He sprayed crumbs on Iker’s notes.

He dusted off the notebook without complaint. Somehow, he was right; everything was.

+

Sergio was clicking his pen over and over again, enjoying the way Iker would twitch with every sound. Sometimes he liked to pretend that he didn't know what he was doing, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He was always out for attention. More specifically, he was always out for Iker's attention. Not because of any romantic interest-- he often assured himself of this indisputable fact-- but because Iker was simply the most fascinating, most important person he had.

"Modern definition of romance," he said aloud, eyes back down on his notebook. "I'm trying to get this paper done."

Iker gritted his teeth. "Yeah, see, I too am working on a paper, but I can't get past three sentences because of your incessant--"

Sergio clicked his pen rapidly. "My...what?" He asked innocently.

Iker's eyes bugged out. "Modern definition of romance: just as cynical, shallow, and useless as it's always been. There is nothing modern about romance. Ever since Adam and Eve were condemning humanity in the Garden, romance has been about three things: sex, destruction, survival. It has nothing to do with love and everything to do with decay."

Sergio blinked. "You actually believe in Adam and Eve?"

"What? No."

"You just said--"

"It was an allusion, Sergio. I don't actually believe-- you know what, I'm not having a conversation about the origins of the universe with you. Do your fucking paper."

Sergio clicked his pen again just as Iker bent his head to return to his work. "I'm trying to work on my paper, but your idea of modern romance is so much more interesting than mine."

Iker rolled his eyes. "Are you really that desperate for excitement that you mistake cynicism and pretension for anything more than what they are."

Sergio shrugged. "Aren't most people?"

Iker raised his eyebrows and said nothing.

Sergio shut his notebook, and Iker looked back down at his work. He finished annotating the first paragraph, let out a little proud exhale of relief, and sat up an inch taller to prepare himself for the next bit.

Sergio watched him for a second, a smile creeping across his lips. "Dinner?"

Iker paused, frowned. "Yeah." He packed his things away and said, "You know, you're a bad influence on me."

"I hope so," Sergio said, tugging his jacket on.

They got drunk instead of doing their papers. Iker was nearly finished with his anyway, but Sergio had to spend the first twelve hours of the next morning-- hungover and missing Linguistics-- miserably finishing his paper.

He couldn't define modern romance. None of it made sense to him. He didn't understand a thing about love. He kept thinking about Fernando's lips and the way his smile was sharp as a knife, like something out of a movie. But he remembered Iker's drunken laugh too, the way he leaned forward with too much reckless abandon; the way his hand lingered on Sergio's thigh for too long to be a harmless gesture.

Iker was holed up in his bedroom, moody and unsmiling. Sergio didn't dare disturb him, fearing a blow-up, but he needed some kind of inspiration. The paper was not going to write itself.

Fernando called a few times. He let it go to voicemail, barely flinching at the "what the fuck, you bastard" followed by a stream of profanities so long it resembled a grocery list.

He rubbed his eyes with his fists. Dreaming, seeing, so powerful it could have been a memory in another life; hand up and down an expanse of smooth skin. A multitude of freckles and a gentleness.

"You're beautiful."

"You can't even see me."

"Doesn't matter. I can feel you. Isn't that more important?"

"Only if we're always in the dark."

Still lost in his daydream, Sergio's breath quickened. His eyes scanned the body. Freckles fading into paleness, a sharp jaw, damaged eyes and a wounded expression. Kiss me, they said; or kill me. They told a simple story, but he had forgotten how to read.

He restarted his paper after six hours of what felt like nothingness. He started writing with a cynical superiority that normally suited Iker. He wrote about avoidance. What was modern romance if not a fucking mess.

He showed it proudly to Iker later, saying, "Look, this is something that you would write."

And immediately Iker pursed his lips, returned to his sensible salad and, after picking out all the mandarin oranges carefully, said, "You shouldn't write like me."

"Why? You're always going on about how much sense you make."

"I am not. Don't be ridiculous." After a beat: "Just because my reactions in life are far more appropriate doesn't mean yours are entirely out of place."

And Sergio imagined he was saying You. You are not out of place.

+

Iker's hangover was rather impressive. Most of the day was wasted although he dragged himself to his classes, propped his body upright, and focused half on the lecture and half on refusing to vomit all over the blue carpet.

His notes were a mess and asking to copy anyone else's was painful, partly because they were hopelessly inadequate and partly because interacting with them was just plain pointless. They didn't want to help him; apparently he was aloof.

He was fuming delicately when Sergio joined him for lunch late the next day. Trying to decipher Irina's notes-- a mixture of English, Russian, and Spanish-- he leaned over the notebook until his nose was nearly pressing into the paper.

"I am not aloof," he said. This was him fuming. "I cannot believe people think I'm aloof."

"You are aloof," Sergio said plainly, leaning over to grab a menu. "Burgers?"

"Soup. And I am not."

"Creamy Tomato or Spicy Thai Noodle? And who said you were fucking aloof anyway?" He said aloof with an eye roll as if he could tell it was Iker's word.

"Thai. And Irina and Sara. They were talking right after she gave me her notes to copy, and Sara goes-- and I quote-- 'He's very... stuck-up, isn't he?'"

"I think I'll get that too," he said, and he left the table to order while Iker remained seated, impatient and translating.

"Who knew Russian was so difficult," he muttered when Sergio returned.

"Oh, wow," he said. "It's almost like it's an entirely different language." Iker's mouth tightened like a petulant child's. Laughing, Sergio continued, "And, dude, you are stuck up. Like, you have an enormous stick up your ass."

"I don't understand," he said, partly to the notes but mostly to Sergio. "Don't people understand that school is difficult? That school is very, very--"

He cut off and rubbed his eyes exhaustedly. This was why he didn't admit it very often, because the exhaustion and the frustration set in, and he was forced to acknowledge that he was not an emotionless robot; he was just very, very good at keeping his emotions at bay.

When Iker looked up, he caught Sergio staring at him with a mixture of fascination and concern, as if his entire world was crumbling around him and he couldn't look away. What was once so certain and so solid was now shaking, falling, tired of staying upright.

"We're all doing school," Sergio said, looking down. His voice was a little sad. "But you can't sacrifice everything for your work."

"But I can," Iker replied, brow furrowing.

"You can." The soups arrived. The waitress left, and Sergio leaned forward again. "But you should not. I know you have friends, man. You just have this wall up, and after awhile, people stop trying."

Iker made his little "Hm" sound and tasted his soup. He hm-ed again but for a very different reason.

But Sergio seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. "And that doesn't mean they never cared to start with. It just means that people give up on people. That's how it works. We like things, people-- and then we throw them away if they don't like us back."

"That doesn't seem right."

"No, it doesn't. We shouldn't be one half of a relationship for attention." He was thinking about tracing freckles, licking sloppily down a spine, angry kisses in the dark.

Iker sat up a little straighter. He didn't like confronting these realities, and he wanted to fall directly back into his distant self.

"Is that what we are?" He asked finally. It didn't make sense to ask a question he didn't want an answer to, but it also didn't make sense to be afraid of an answer; not wanting to face this fear and the feeling behind it, he forced himself into the question anyway. The lesser of two evils.

"No," Sergio said without hesitation. "If I wanted attention, you're the last person I would come to."

Iker returned to his soup. "Good," he said after a long time.

+

The next day he was very nice. He went up to Irina when he saw her at the gym, dug into his gym bag, and handed her the notebook.

"Thank you," he said carefully, risking a smile. "These were surprisingly helpful." He meant it. Once he deciphered the Russian, he understood exactly what she was talking about, and they were wonderful additions to his scattered, hangover notes.

"Surprisingly," she repeated. She put the notebook in her bag, flashing him a forced smile.

Iker went back to his workout. Someone had taken his treadmill, so, mouth tightening with distaste, he moved to the one near the window and continued running, running, running until he was leaving everything behind. The exchange did not bother him because it was not real. It did not happen, and it would never happen.

A flash of anger, and he quickened his pace. It was always better never to speak to people. He twisted his own words, and they misunderstood. What he meant was still stuck somewhere between his ribs; what he said was floating out in the open. It was detached from feeling and so was he. He felt sick.

He was so upset that, not changing out of his workout clothes and not even bothering to call or text first, he walked over to Sergio's. No matter what he did, people would always assume he was vain, pompous, condescending.

People were just leaving, clapping Sergio on the back and shouting about plans for later-- "That party, yeah? Bring your boyfriend, man."

Iker felt a sharp pang somewhere in his throat. It didn't seem right that one person should have so much and misunderstand everything about priorities. Life should be organized, he wanted to tell Sergio, but it was difficult to argue with a multitude of friends, a beautiful boyfriend, plans every night, people to talk to. There were no whispers behind his back about being stuck-up.

"Iker," he said, no less delighted to see his uppity friend, "What's up?"

Iker wrinkled his nose, just now realizing what he was wearing. "I smell like the grave."

"It's okay," he replied cheerfully. "Come into my room. Everything smells like the grave in there, and your unique stench of decomposition will be overwhelmed."

Iker trudged inside, dropping his gym bag on the floor. "God," he said, sitting on the bed. "Who am I. I've walked around in my gym clothes for absolutely no reason. I haven't showered. I'm dropping my things all over your room like some uncultured animal."

Sergio sat right next to him, put his hand on Iker's arm. Iker was acutely aware of the door being unlocked. "I think you're starting to act like a normal human being for once."

Iker knew he was joking, but he scoffed at "normal." Normal. What did that mean. What was that thing.

Then, softer, "Come on, Iker. What happened?"

He laughed a little under his breath. "People love you. And I can't even talk to them."

"Sure you can. You're talking to me right now."

"That's different." The door was unlocked. He felt half-naked in his workout gear. Sergio's hand was on his arm, and he smelled of sweat and rubber.

"How is it different then."

"Because it's you." After saying it, he realized it was something he'd been aching to say for ages. He didn't really want to confess anything; he would be far too defenseless after that-- but he wanted to set Sergio apart somehow. He wanted to say-- there is this. There was his inability to speak, his tripping over words, his awkward, uncomfortable haughty way of being. And then there was how he could be around Sergio. Still stiff. Still uncomfortable. But not entirely incapable of feeling.

"Is there something different about me?" He held his breath, trapping the knowledge that nothing would come of this. Iker wouldn't dare say anything that would unbalance their current state of equilibrium.

Iker shrugged. "Don't know." He looked to the door. "I don't know."

"Okay." He blinked. Counting freckles, kissing up a body, and licking down a spine. Freckles fading into pale skin.Light hair fading into dark. "Is it possibly because we're friends?"

It was Iker's turn to blink. It was obvious that they were friends, but actually admitting it out loud, having a conversation about the precise nature of their relationship was different. Saying that word as if it meant something more than buying each other drinks and lending each other scarves.

"I guess," he said, a little startled.

+

When Fernando finally got jealous, Sergio wasn't surprised. He had brought him to the party, and he had introduced him as "my boyfriend," but sometimes Sergio went on and on about Iker, and Fernando sat back in his seat with his mouth all tense like Iker had it sometimes.

It wasn't that they hadn't met because they had. It was that Sergio kept his Iker life and his Fernando life entirely separate. Fernando, greedy in love as he was, wanted his influence to extend over everything.

"So when are we going to hang out with Iker?" He propped his chin up on his hand. "All of us together, I mean."

Sergio smiled at him from across the table. When things were good, things were so good, and he couldn't stop grinning, and they loved each other so much. He didn't want to think about when things were bad. It was painful to dwell on how perfect things fell apart.

"Soon," he promised. "But you have to be nice to him."

"Why," Fernando said carelessly. He was going to be nice anyway, but he liked being insufferable.

"Because he's my favorite," Sergio replied self-importantly.

"Your favorite what?"

"My favorite." His voice was very final, and he was smiling, but his eyes were firm.

Fernando looked out the window hurriedly, avoiding the depth in Sergio's eyes at all costs. A couple was winding their way down the rainy side streets, sharing an umbrella even though it was just drizzling. That was what Fernando wanted, but Sergio would be back fifteen paces, sticking his tongue out and trying to catch the rain. They were not made to walk side by side.

"I just want to be a normal couple," he said in a quiet voice. "I want to know your friends."

Sergio laughed and touched Fernando's hand across the table. "You know my friends. You've met them."

"Yes. And I've met Iker. But you're always off alone together."

"Because Iker doesn't really know how to act around my friends. It makes him happier to just hang out with me, so that's what we do."

Fernando's eyes narrowed, and that was the beginning. Over the next few weeks, it grew more and more apparent to Sergio that Iker did not like Fernando-- he simply tolerated him.

When Fernando crashed their study dates, Iker slowly inched away until he was pressed into the wall or hiding behind his computer or disappearing into the hood of his sweatshirt.

"It's okay," Sergio told him later, when it was just the two of them. "You know, Fernando's not so bad."

"Hm."

Sergio wanted to tease him and pepper him with questions, but that aspect of their relationship felt lost. Iker was no longer a blank wall to charge headfirst into. Sergio saw him now as delicate, broken, lost. Sergio had so many people to turn to, to speak to, and Iker had one. The least Fernando could do was let his boyfriend have one friend-- just one-- that was all his.

"Do you hate hanging out with him?"

"Do you?" He returned, raising his eyebrows.

Sergio laughed quietly into his palm. He rubbed his chin. "Not even with me? You won't even just tell me how you feel for once?"

Iker looked at him for a long time. "It's not important how I feel. You're the one dating him. Not me."

He remembered himself from a long time ago. Drinking his coffee and not caring, not feeling. Now that Sergio had seen his weakness, had seen just how afraid Iker was of failing and making a fool of himself, things had changed drastically. He could shield himself still, but he could not pretend he felt nothing.

"Yeah," Sergio said, suddenly feeling the weight of the bad times. More unsure than ever, he returned to his work.

+

They graduated. Iker spoke. People cheered. Sergio cheered the loudest, and afterward they went to his place for a party. Because it was graduation and Iker was already secure with a job, he could think of no excuse Sergio would accept. It felt strange to be secure, to have every reason to be carefree.

He still stood uncomfortably, drink in one hand to steady himself. "Yeah, I'm working in Boston," he was saying to someone he barely recognized. "I start in two weeks. No, yes, I'm very excited."

What question was he answering again? He saw Sara and Irina across the room, and he was distracted. They were laughing with their mouths open, as comfortable in a group of people as the stars in the night sky.

"That's wonderful," the stranger was saying. "Are you and Sergio going to see much of each other after this? You two have been attached at the hip for the last two years." A false, hearty laugh.

The hair at the back of his neck bristled. "What," he said haltingly. "I. I'm not sure. Sergio has his own plans, and I have mine."

Suddenly the girls were at his side, and Sara was muttering, "Unconcerned as usual. God forbid he pay attention to anyone besides himself."

She made herself a drink and turned back to him, raising her eyebrows combatively. She looked rather beautiful when she was trying to pick a fight. Iker almost smiled, but, confused at this sudden burst of affection for someone he did not know, he assumed his stiff persona again.

"Excuse me," he said coldly, reaching past her for a napkin. "I know. I'm shocked I saw you there too. Normally I'm so unconcerned and stuck-up."

"And now you're a regular gentleman," she returned smoothly, leaning away.

Sergio was suddenly there at Iker's elbow, tugging at him pleadingly. "Kitchen. Now."

There was a blizzard of people outside the sliding door, and then nearly silent within. The faint buzz of activity could be heard, but only bits and pieces of conversations stood out-- "...always have those pictures on my phone... Can't imagine what London must be like right now-- oh, you've never been to Prague? You simply must--"

Sergio turned around to make himself a drink. "You doing alright out there?"

"Probably not." He shrugged.

"Fuck. Even the way you move your shoulders screams 'I'm rich and I like it.'"

"Who would be rich and not like it."

Sergio leaned against the counter and narrowed his eyes like Iker was being graded. "You'd be surprised."

"Boo-fucking-hoo." Iker rolled his eyes. Sergio didn't know anything about how he grew up. Didn't know anything about his family. "Go buy a fucking Ferrari. And while you're at it, get some real problems."

Sergio opened his mouth to reply, really wanted to lean forward and place his inebriated lips on Iker's cheek and communicate his response through movement. They could kiss, and he would understand. But as he moved forward-- ghostlike, moving through liquid-- the door opened, and the spell was interrupted.

"I better go," he said hurriedly. Iker was watching him closely, eyes moving back and forth between his starting place and his startled stop. Tracking the feeling.

"Go where?" The door slid shut, and they were alone again. "Are we going to see each other after this? Rumor has it we've been attached at the hip for the last two years."

"Of course we'll see each other after this. What kind of question is that?"

Iker looked at him for a long moment before politely disengaging himself from the conversation. He said it was getting late and the roads were busy. Besides, he was exhausted and had an early morning.

Fine. Sergio didn't look happy, but he led Iker to the door, wondering if he was the only half of this thing that felt how they toed the line between friendship and something more.

+

All at once, things were dizzyingly terrible. He hated the way Fernando’s freckles lined up, and he hated the way he smiled, and he hated the way his fingers left marks in the morning. He hated everything about the way they breathed side by side at dawn. Most of all, he hated his inability to move away. He could only stand still.

"What is it that you want," he asked Iker thoughtfully. Coffee again, only this time Iker was on his lunch break, and Sergio was waiting around before an interview. "I mean, what is it that you really want more than anything."

Instead of being cryptic, he just sighed and said, "Fuck if I know. There are a million things I want, but I can't think of one thing that is worth the rest. With school, it was easy. My grades are important, my work is important. Killing myself to be successful was important. Now I am successful. I have a good job. I'm working my way up. What do I want now? Only to remain, I suppose."

Sergio looked out the window. "God. Isn't life boring."

"Of course," Iker said, as if the only shocking part was that Sergio hadn't seen it sooner. After a moment,"What is it that you really want?"

The ghost of a one syllable word sunk its teeth in his flesh. "Not what I have," he said finally. "I think we're going to break up."

There was a long stretch of silence, and Iker felt something like anger, relief, compassion spreading through his body. "You and Fernando?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I think we're--" He smiled. "Illogical."

Iker took a sip of his coffee. For once, he wasn't pretending to care. He just did. "If there's one thing I've learned from you-- and I'm not saying that there is; this is all hypothetical, of course-- it's that the most beautiful things are often the most illogical."

Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Those things also tend to be the most harmful, but what do you expect when you're dealing with love."

"What do I expect? Well, for starters, I expect not to be hurt."

"Then you really are quite stupid."

Sergio, always entertained by Iker's cynicism and rarely overwhelmed by his own naivety, smiled and leaned forward. "What would you do if someone fell in love with you?"

Iker looked thrown off balance. "Offer my condolences, I suppose."

+

The next winter was difficult though Sergio found a job and Iker received a promotion. People worked under him. He was the promising new filth that would make the old filth burn out and die-- or that’s how Sergio put it at least. Sergio was dramatic and vain, even more so than when he was in college. He got a few tattoos and a few piercings in places Iker didn’t think it polite to allow his thoughts to dwell on. And he and Fernando broke up-- and got back together and broke up and got back together and ….

“It’s as stable and consistent as anything I’ve ever had,” he said. “I know that’s terrible, but.”

“It’s not terrible. I mean, I disapprove of your relationship on principle because--” Iker stopped himself. Since when did he consider it his place to say? Since when did he care? Since when was any of this his business? Alone, he reminded himself-- This is how you are better off.

But Sergio was looking at him with those eyes, begging, absolutely begging to know. He remembered Sergio’s voice a long time ago: “Iker, please, Iker you have to tell me. Iker, if you don’t tell me right now I will absolutely die. Iker--”

Iker moved away. They were wandering around an old bookstore Iker had requested they check out, and he couldn’t actually for the life of him remember two very important things: 1.) What he came in here trying to find and 2.) whether Sergio and his other half were currently between relationships or in one together. Although to be fair, he could never tell anyway.

“Iker.”

“Sergio.”

“Iker, what were you going to say?”

He paused in front of a random shelf, pretending it was the one he was looking for. Since when--

“I disapprove of your relationship simply because it’s not-- it doesn’t seem to improve on you being single. Isn’t that the point somehow? To bring out your greatest qualities? I don’t know… All of this is nonsense, but shouldn’t something like that be the point?”

“It should be.” Sergio was looking at him carefully. “And what do you think I’m treating as the point instead? Why do you think I do it if it doesn’t make me happy?”

Iker looked up from the shelf and then back down quickly. He ran his fingers down the spine. “I never said anything about happy.”

“Didn’t have to. I did.” His eyes were a challenge. “So why do I do it?"

"I don't know. Because you like breaking things." Or you like being broken-- but he didn't say that part because people weren't rag dolls to be pricked and pulled apart. They couldn't be broken. There was no such thing.

"Do you think I break him?"

Iker pulled a book off the shelf. The door opened and more people filed in. The shop was getting busier. He opened the book and snapped it shut again thoughtfully.

"Well I don't think you'd care if you did."

Sergio didn't answer for a moment, and Iker was reminded of the time they used to share together, bickering as if they were both permanent. They could fight and piss each other off; Sergio could annoy him every second, and Iker could allow himself to be annoyed because time wasn't precious. They would see each other the next day and the next day and the day after that. In that bookstore under the dim lights, with Sergio's hair a mess from the wind, for the first time in a long time Iker felt desperate. Something was slipping through his fingers. He was meant to reach for something, but his limbs weren't responding.

Finally Sergio broke the silence. "You might be right." He looked at Iker for a long time. And Iker looked at him back. Everything was so obvious and so terrifying.

"Okay," Iker said.

"Okay." He took one last look at the shelf, putting on a show for the other man, trying to pretend he wasn't eager to move away and find a Fernando and tell him that everything was ruined with a gleeful expression.

+

There was a lot of throwing things and curse words. Fernando was very good at cursing, and Sergio supposed it was his fault. It wasn't easy to deal with him; it wasn't uncommon to tend towards compound curse words. Even his mother had invented a few interesting combinations when he was younger. So it wasn't that Fernando was a drama queen or a jealous boyfriend or a possessive snake. He was just lonely. He wanted someone to hold him at night and make him feel like the only one. He wanted someone to look up at the night sky and make some cheesy remark about fatal beauty. He wanted that Hollywood kind of romance that even Hollywood doesn't have.

“I’m not that,” Sergio mumbled almost incoherently. He was over at Iker’s. He’d shown up on the doorstep with a few DVDs, explaining casually that he and Fernando had broken up and he felt like dying, so could he possibly come in and distract himself?

“You’re not what?”

Sergio gestured to the screen. The couple was kissing. She’d lost her scarf, and he’d returned it like the perfect, loyal, honest gentleman he was. “I wouldn’t return Fernando’s scarf.”

Iker frowned. “When did you borrow his scarf?”

“It’s a metaphor,” Sergio returned, annoyed. He let his head rest against the arm of the couch and threw his legs over Iker’s lap. “This guy is so fucking…” He threw his arm over his eyes. “I don’t know. Sometimes I just wish I could muster up more feeling, you know?”

“No,” Iker said. “Anytime I’ve got feeling, it’s too much.”

“That’s because you’re a fucking machine,” he replied carelessly. Sergio felt Iker’s hand twitch against his leg, and he immediately regretted his words. “Not in a bad way.” Thank God his arm was still covering his eyes. “Just, like, you’re happy this way. You’re better. You don’t need the approval of others to be happy. You just need yourself.”

It was quiet for a long time, and Sergio didn’t move his arm. Then, he felt Iker move, pause the movie. It was silent. His hand was resting gently against Sergio’s leg.

“I think everyone needs someone else. At least some of the time.”

Sergio snorted and finally let his hand drop to the floor. “Yeah?” He half-sat up. “And who have you ever needed?”

He shrugged. “You.”

Then something was different in the room because Sergio felt like his limbs were on fire; he was either suffocating or breathing for the first time. He half-moved forward, with ease, with a hazy understanding of what was to come next. His lips weren't listening.

"You've never needed me a day of your life," he said, but there was something within him that saw the depth of it all. He denied it aloud to understand where they stood, but he knew. He knew.

"People aren't supposed to need people,” Iker said in a somewhat pleading tone. “I’m not supposed to need you.”

“Yet here we are, with things so obvious.”

They were so close-- too close-- that nothing happened in the hours between night and morning. They ended up turning away from each other as if burnt. The movie suddenly became interesting, and then not so interesting because the only thing that captured their interest was the heat between their shoulders. They fell asleep, inching apart but longing to move together.

In the morning, the city was bright beneath Iker’s window. He woke up, pulled the blanket over Sergio, and stepped toward the kitchen to start breakfast. He didn’t know what he felt. He knew there was something he should have been feeling, but he was only feeling the vague weight of numbness. What else was there to feel? It was lurking somewhere in the nothingness. Sergio moved in his sleep, and Iker thought yes, there it is. That’s what I’m meant to be feeling. Because there was a sharp pang in his chest that was somehow always there but had only just recently become recognizable.

He wondered how people were not constantly consumed with grief and wonder because of the things they did to one another. Fernando and Sergio moved through life like everything was glass and it was their right to break it. They thought time could never transform into a number; it was infinity, always. They worked like machines under the basic belief that the world was theirs forever. They didn’t have to treat each other well because time was never running out. They had all the time in the world to make things better, so why make it better now? It was all glass crunching between their bloody fists.

Then Sergio was shuffling toward him, rubbing his eyes with his fists, and there was an aching irregularity in Iker’s chest-- some banging, some feeling like his whole body was being crushed by the weight of something weightless. That feeling made him want to open his mouth and say ridiculous things, if only to relieve the pressure. It was a feeling like he would burst soon if he didn’t breathe, open his mouth, say something he would regret, pull Sergio closer to him and try to explain things neither of them understood.

“I don’t know what I was saying last night,” Sergio said. His voice was tired, throat hoarse. He moved his hands through his hair.

“Something about scarves. Something about things being obvious.” He looked down at his hands. “A lot was said about you and Fernando breaking up. You seemed upset.”

“I was upset,” he said, moving forward. He opened the refrigerator, partly because he was starving and partly because he wanted to hide his face. “That’s what happens when you lose things. You get upset when it’s impossible to find them again.”

Iker watched his back. “People,” he said suddenly, surprising himself. “That’s what happens when you lose people.”

Sergio turned to frown at him. “What are you on about?”

“You were talking about things, and I was talking about people.”

Sergio shrugged and said, “Same thing.”

He moved away, back to the couch with a bowl of granola and milk, a banana in hand. Iker was hit with another feeling now-- some injustice. He wanted to lash out and yell, move toward Sergio and tell him exactly what he thought; you are reckless, you are unkind, but you still have this terrible softness that I love. Sergio could walk around and make people love him,  not because he was merciless and wanted people to fall but because this is just the way that he was.

Iker wanted resolution. He wanted reparations. He wanted someone to tell him “It’s okay. This feeling will fade. It wasn’t given to you for nothing.” But there was no answer, no voice in the back of his mind, no feeling in his throat like everything was going to be okay. There was only the feeling that he had been lead into a trap. Because he knew what was going to happen the next day and the day after that and in the days to come after and after and after, stretching into that infinity only Fernando and Sergio seemed to recognize as a reality. He was going to remain in this hopelessness.

What Sergio felt for Iker was real. It would last. Things would remain obvious. But Sergio lacked the ability to fully leave Fernando behind him, no matter how much yelling or screaming there was, no matter how many times he deleted his number, there was a magnetism that kept them together-- and a rage that kept them apart. So rather than choosing one side to fully give themselves over to, they remained somewhere in the middle-- raging and loving and raging and hurting all over again. This was their eternity, and there was nothing romantic about it.

If Sergio had the strength to leave Fernando and his old life behind, he would not have been himself. Perhaps he would have then fallen into Iker more completely, but-- he would not have been himself. Half his soul was fucking up. Mistakes were in his blood, but this was excusable because they were not Iker’s type of mistakes or a normal person’s type of mistakes-- they were grand mistakes, romantic mistakes, passionate mistakes, mistakes that made people look at their hands and want to destroy like him.

+

Iker had spent weeks tolerating Sergio’s behavior, struggling to understand what touches were normal touches and what meant more, struggling to distinguish between what he wanted to be true and what was actually true. They were getting burritos -- Sergio’s choice; Iker found it highly unlikely that he would escape the “burrito joint” without spilling at least two tablespoons of something on himself. It was a little place near Iker’s work, and Sergio had walked over.

He was being remarkably kind again, patiently waiting for Iker to order, giving him quiet suggestions when he so obviously had no clue what to get, guiding him toward a table away from the loud people, tugging on his hand when they saw someone from work. He was so aware of what Iker needed, of what he wanted, of the sort of person he was. This was the kindness, the terrible softness, that Iker could not ignore. There were two versions of Sergio in his head: this Sergio with his warm smile and his ability to make everything better; and then there was the other Sergio, the one who jumped off the roof of his frat house just because he could, the boy who never-- not even for a second-- considered that it was impossible, the boy who didn’t understand how lucky he was.

Then Iker couldn’t stand it any longer. He was never the sort of person who couldn’t hold things inside. He always, always managed to contain, to suppress, to quiet himself, but there was something different about this new pressure. It weighed so heavily on his lungs, on his chest, behind his eyes. It forced its way into every conversation-- even a vague reference to a loved one had Iker’s mind reeling in Sergio’s direction. He had never been so unable to control himself. There was something exhilarating and terrifying about this feeling, and he wanted to be finished with it.

“Why don’t we ever just say something,” he said finally, desperately.

Sergio looked up. “What? I thought you liked eating quietly. You literally always tell me to shut up when we’re eating. I thought I was being nice--”

“No,” Iker said with a quiet laugh. “No. That’s not what I meant at all. I meant.” He paused abruptly. Since when could he not keep his mouth shut? “Why can we never just have things out in the open? We talked about how things were so obvious, yet here we are-- with things still obvious but things still concealed.”

Sergio’s expression darkened. He picked at his food. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Iker was instantly uncomfortable. He had asked for honesty, for openness, and now he had to squirm under it. “Thanks,” he said quickly. “That’s… thanks.”

Sergio’s smile was a firm line that he struggled briefly to contain. “Everyone else…” He drifted off and the smile faded. “They’re good friends, don’t get me wrong, and I love hanging out with them, but after awhile-- I don’t know-- after awhile, I just get sick of all the noise and the carelessness. There’s nothing wrong with the way that they are. Sometimes I just need to get away. I just get sick of it. But I don’t get sick of you.”

“Is this what you want to say to me? That you like the way I’m quiet? That we’re very good friends?”

“Yes.” He hesitated. “No. Just wait a second. I’m getting there. Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say? A few weeks ago, you told me that you needed me. And it’s so obvious that I need you. Do you understand what I’m saying? If we start something, I’ll fuck it up. I haven’t ruined this yet.”

“So I just have to deal with your inconsistency? Don’t you understand what you do to people?” His voice was even and quiet but there was a desperation that his insides only carried before. Iker didn’t show his desperation; he never showed his weakness. This was illogical and out of character, but to deal with illogical circumstances, he had to become something that he was not: passionate, feeling, some creature of desire.

“What,” Sergio said flatly. “What exactly is it that I do to people?” He had this look in his eyes like he knew: ruin them, that’s what you do. You ruin them.

“You make them want you,” Iker said, and it was the only way he could say I want you. “And then you pull away because you don’t want to-- what is it? You don’t want to hurt me? Is that what this is?” He laughed quietly under his breath, felt like a madman. “You already are. None of this makes sense.”

“It’s not supposed to--”

“That’s not what I mean. Feelings don’t make sense. Loving doesn’t make sense. Friendship doesn’t even make sense because you have to forgive people for shit that you probably shouldn’t forgive them for. They hurt you, and you say ‘Oh, it’s okay. I’ll forgive you because of some bond we have’, some fucked up thing to fall back on when you don’t want to lose the person you trusted most.”

“You’re ranting, Iker.” There was a sad smile, some stained remembrance in his eyes.

“This doesn’t make sense in a different way. It’s illogical. If there’s something between us, we should act on it, or at least get it out in the open. None of this hiding. Just be straightforward and honest. No complexities, no pride.”

Sergio played with the edge of his bag. There was a book half sticking out, and he ran his fingers along the edges. “Do you remember that graduation party I threw?”

“Sure. I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“I’m getting to the point,” Sergio said patiently. “Do you understand how irritating you are?”

“Yes. Go on.”

“When you were talking to Sara, and you reached across her to grab something. I pulled you into the kitchen.”

“I remember.”

“I almost kissed you then.”

Iker was quiet. He picked at his food. “I know. I left before you could.”

“So you see what I mean about holding back.”

“Of course I do.” He chased a mouthful of rice around his plate, drawing circles, hearing the screech of metal against the plate. “That’s all I do, hold back. I just think that if it’s something really important-- I don’t know-- maybe it’s worth it to not be so goddamn…” He trailed off.

“It’s not worth it to me. It means losing you.” He set down his fork. “Feel better now?” There was bitter amusement at the back of his throat. “Now that we’ve got everything out in the open? Doesn’t it feel so much better?”

“It feels,” he started. And then stopped. That was all he really wanted to say anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> \- When Iker says "no complexities or pride...." -- that whole part-- it's an allusion to Neruda's sonnet xvii 
> 
> \- if you see Sergio's actions written in "halves" (i.e. "he half-moved forward", a book sticking /half/ out of his bag) this is not a coincidence. He does everything in halves because he's stuck in the middle of two people, two situations, two lives-- however you want to put it. 
> 
> \- I have a lot of feelings about the ending, so if you want to analyze that with me, comment and we can have a discussion about that. It's meant to be vague. 
> 
> small playlist i was just thinking about:   
> 1\. L'Ocean - Dominique A   
> 2\. Wicked Games - RAIGN   
> 3\. you are my soul - manicanparty   
> 4\. dreams - wet   
> 5\. haunt-demo - Bastille


End file.
